Muhammad Ali a fraud?

[Second Coming]

I have watched over 40 Muhammad Ali fights in the past two weeks, and I gotta tell ya, rather than coming to the conclusion that he's great like everyone else says, it made me wonder, are all the premature stoppages just a coincidence?

Of course, there is the main three points which come to mind when talking about this subject.

1.) Sonny Liston taking a dive.
2.) George Foreman getting to his feet at the count of 8 but the ref calling the fight.
3.) Cutting the glove against Henry Cooper.

There is also maybe five or six instances of fights being stopped by the referee when Ali's opponent takes two or three punches but still looks capable of continuing and is not in any serious danger. And again, there's alot of times his opponents dramatically drop to the floor and roll around, or play dead while the ref counts to ten when there is no clear knockout punches thrown. In all of these fights the opponents seem to recover miraculously and have no problem congratulating Ali. 25 of Ali's KO wins have came as a result of the referee stopping the fight.

To me, this is all shady business.

[Chr0nic]

usually when fighters dont get up before the count of 7/8 the fight is over
so no suprise there

[Grand Champ]

That puts us back to the ''what if'' discussion. What if Liston took a dive, foreman got up and so on.. Well, we don't know if Liston took a dive and Foreman was so exhausted he didn't even discuss the ref decision anyway so in my book under the circumstances that ACTUALLY happened he's the greatest in my book.

[Abstraction]

Lol.

No, he is not.

[them_apples]

I have watched over 40 Muhammad Ali fights in the past two weeks, and I gotta tell ya, rather than coming to the conclusion that he's great like everyone else says, it made me wonder, are all the premature stoppages just a coincidence?

Of course, there is the main three points which come to mind when talking about this subject.

1.) Sonny Liston taking a dive.
2.) George Foreman getting to his feet at the count of 8 but the ref calling the fight.
3.) Cutting the glove against Henry Cooper.

There is also maybe five or six instances of fights being stopped by the referee when Ali's opponent takes two or three punches but still looks capable of continuing and is not in any serious danger. And again, there's alot of times his opponents dramatically drop to the floor and roll around, or play dead while the ref counts to ten when there is no clear knockout punches thrown. In all of these fights the opponents seem to recover miraculously and have no problem congratulating Ali. 25 of Ali's KO wins have came as a result of the referee stopping the fight.

To me, this is all shady business.

the Lyle fight was an early stoppage to. I'm not going to make pre conceived notions about him, but on paper he has a great resume. I almost wonder if the Foreman vs Ali fight was in Zaire just to make it even quicker for George to Gas. Also the loosening of the ropes.

[Bushbaby]

There has been rumors about Foreman being sedated in that Ali fight!

[TheGreatA]

There are rumours about everything.

Facts are, Foreman was young, in his prime and coming off dominant wins over two fighters who had beaten Ali while Ali was 32 years old and had not looked too great in his recent performances. The question before the fight wasn't whether Foreman would run out of stamina, it was whether Ali could keep moving for 15 rounds in his present condition. He couldn't do that against Norton and Frazier.

No one thought laying on the ropes and standing in front of Foreman would be the way to beat him as Norton and Frazier had been quickly destroyed that way.

[Roger Yomama]

I have watched over 40 Muhammad Ali fights in the past two weeks, and I gotta tell ya, rather than coming to the conclusion that he's great like everyone else says, it made me wonder, are all the premature stoppages just a coincidence?

Of course, there is the main three points which come to mind when talking about this subject.

1.) Sonny Liston taking a dive.
2.) George Foreman getting to his feet at the count of 8 but the ref calling the fight.
3.) Cutting the glove against Henry Cooper.

There is also maybe five or six instances of fights being stopped by the referee when Ali's opponent takes two or three punches but still looks capable of continuing and is not in any serious danger. And again, there's alot of times his opponents dramatically drop to the floor and roll around, or play dead while the ref counts to ten when there is no clear knockout punches thrown. In all of these fights the opponents seem to recover miraculously and have no problem congratulating Ali. 25 of Ali's KO wins have came as a result of the referee stopping the fight.

To me, this is all shady business.

An old wives tale. Ask 15 old (British) men and they will tell you the break between rounds lasted anywhere between 3 and 10 minutes. It's just one of those silly rumours that won't die, despite the evidence to the contrary.

[Smokin'J]

Nah, its true about the glove
Angie told it himself(Angelo Dundee) in one of Ali's books(maybe more, I only got one).

[JAB5239]

I have watched over 40 Muhammad Ali fights in the past two weeks, and I gotta tell ya, rather than coming to the conclusion that he's great like everyone else says, it made me wonder, are all the premature stoppages just a coincidence?

Of course, there is the main three points which come to mind when talking about this subject.

1.) Sonny Liston taking a dive.
2.) George Foreman getting to his feet at the count of 8 but the ref calling the fight.
3.) Cutting the glove against Henry Cooper.

There is also maybe five or six instances of fights being stopped by the referee when Ali's opponent takes two or three punches but still looks capable of continuing and is not in any serious danger. And again, there's alot of times his opponents dramatically drop to the floor and roll around, or play dead while the ref counts to ten when there is no clear knockout punches thrown. In all of these fights the opponents seem to recover miraculously and have no problem congratulating Ali. 25 of Ali's KO wins have came as a result of the referee stopping the fight.

To me, this is all shady business.

While I only rank Joe Louis higher among heavyweights, its pretty hard to overrate Ali when you look at the caliber of his competition. His resume is one of the best ever at any weight.

As far as his having 25 stoppages by the referee jumping in........so what. Ali wasn't a power puncher. He used speed and volume to overwhelm his opponents. If a man is till standing but cannot defend himself, it really leaves the ref no choice.

1.) Sonny Liston taking a dive.

Liston did not take a dive. He was clearly beaten in the first fight. The second fight was stopped by incompetent refereeing on the part of Joe Walcott

2.) George Foreman getting to his feet at the count of 8 but the ref calling the fight.

Foreman took the whole count. Even if he didn't, he was spent and a sitting duck for Ali. Nothing shady there.

3.) Cutting the glove against Henry Cooper.

Nobody cut the glove, it was torn during the previous round before the knockdown. Dundee just helped it out a little and brought it to the attention of the referee at a most opputune time.